National Archives and Records Administration - ARC 39013, LI 208-UN-106 - D-DAY - DVD Copied by Thomas Gideon. Series: Motion Picture Films from "United News" Newsreels, compiled 1942 - 1945. Gen. Eisenhower and his aides map the Normandy invasion. German pictures show the extent of their coastal defenses. Tanks, guns, locomotives, and other military equipment is massed on the English beaches. Troops practice loading operations. Landing craft is tested in the English Channel. Pictures of practice landing and airborne operations are used to dramatize the actual invasion on June 6, 1944.
Reviewer:Dodsworth the Cat
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January 1, 2023 Subject:
Not Quite D-Day
Very fine quality footage, including material captured from the Nazis. It doesn't show the actual D-Day invasion, just the landing rehearsal, though this reel was released after June 6th. This is an unusual newsreel format, as most studio newsreels (Pathe, Universal, Paramount, etc.) have stories that take up 45 to 90 seconds, while this is one story on a nine-minute reel. Unusual as well is there is no narrator credit (this one is very serious). Or one for the music (the marching melody gets to be a bit much). The United Newsreel Corporation was set up in early 1942 by the OWI and five American film studios. It was led by Murray Silverstone, president of 20th Century-Fox International Corp. The company was dissolved on Dec. 15, 1945. The reels were produced once a week and shown in theatres overseas in various languages.